Good start Mtel Masters
9 May 2008 3:21 AM | Last modified: 10:26
The organizers of the Mtel Masters in Sofia couldn’t have hoped for a better start of their 2008 tournament. Both Topalov and Cheparinov won; against Aronian and Bu respectively. Ivanchuk defeated Radjabov.
Contrary to his usual style, Topalov started very well this time: he beat Aronian in a great game. It started quietly but then it became clear the Bulgarian wasn’t satisfied with half a point. He started a massage of White’s kingside with his queen and knight, and eventually he could decide the game with the fancy combination 36…Re3!! which forced a liquidation to a winning ending.
Cheparinov’s endgame win against Bu was the typical Sicilian knightmare: good White knight against bad bishop e7 with the d6-e5 structure. Radjabov might have underestimated Ivanchuk’s profound understanding of the game: at first the Azeri’s win of an exchange wasn’t really successful and then it really went wrong in a pawn ending.
Pairings round 2:
Bu Xiangzhi - Radjabov
Aronian - Cheparinov
Topalov - Ivanchuk
Videos by Europe-Echecs:
The venue: the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria
The drawing of lots
Levon Aronian picks his number
At the press conference
The players play their game in a glass cage. The construction’s dimensions are 8 х 8 х 3.5 m. The floor is entirely made of laminated glass, designed as a chessboard and four columns. The cage was designed by Stilstroy Proekt in a team with the designer Altan Ibrahimov, architect Donka Zaneva and the engineer Ivan Nenkov. One of Europe’s leading acoustics experts – Elia Spasov. He works with the jazz festival in Montreux and has consulted legendary bands like Metallica and Deep Purple. The isolation of the wall is comparable to that of 7-meter wall.
Aronian-Topalov: the top match already in round 1
Ivan Cheparinov, who found the time to visit a hairdresser between tournaments
Teimour Radjabov, also right from Baku to Sofia
Bu Xiangzhi, China’s number one
Vassily Ivanchuk, this time not at the Capablanca Memorial
Links:
The commentary was very bad here. Didn’t even mention that Topalov was worse at some point, struggling for equality. Also “Ivanchuk’s profound understanding of the game” is oversimplifying the matter greatly. Radjabov just fell apart.
Topalov played a great game. Re3??!! was the only inaccuary (white should go for Qd5!) for Topalov in the game. But after fe3 it fired the board!
Indeed this one was a bit sloppy, but because of technical problems I couldn’t start writing before 2 AM. I should at least have mentioned that 36…Qf4! 37.Kh1 Ne3! 38.fxe3 Qxf3 39.Kg1 Qg3 40.Kf1 Rxe3 wins for Black in Aronian-Topalov, and with 37.Qxd5 Levon could have saved the game. Radjabov’s loss seems to have mainly been caused by timetrouble; until he returned the exchange it was pretty complicated.
A bit harsh to say the commentary was ‘very bad’. Clearly, the game was very complicated, and we can’t all have the machine watching with us all the time. And also clearly, Re3 was a very spectacular move which deserves the praise peter gave it, even if Aronian could have held it. It’s a bit too easy to criticize comments made on a daily blog when you have a chess engine running in the background…
live comentators also made mistake on Re3 move missing Qxd5 you know its easy
to be allknowing person with computer but lets give some credit this move was made in a big time trouble from Aronian and Vesko was tempted by this idea and he
couldn’t resist for Bu Cheparinov so i saw this variation with a5 in Najdorf with Karjakin and Bu won so i’m happy Ivan found the right plan but i don’t understand the maneouvre starting with move 11 Qd2->Qe1->Qf2 why not Qd2->Qf2 immediately
test:
:)))
funny that Bu is the only player who is introduced with his first name(s) on his table
Actually Re3! deserves ! it was strong from the practical point of view!!